what do you think?

Question

a woman driving through McDonald's spilled hot coffee on her lap and used for a huge sum of money. The judge awarded her $640,000.Some people question whose responsibility spilled coffee should be:McDonald's,for making it so hot or the woman's, for being careful.. what do you think?

Answer 1

That's extremely lame. If the lady actually spilled it herself, McDonalds shouldn't be fined for anything.

After all, who really likes luke-warm coffee? If the cup said "Caution: Hot" then she should know. What a brat that lady is.

Answer 2

Thats an old one there is a website named after her for all the people who made silly claims. like the man who sued McDs becusae he was fat and another was a lady who put her camper van into cruise control crashed and was awarded silly money because it gig not say in the handbook you had to stay at the wheel


McDs cup carry a "very hot "warning

here's another
Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran his hand over with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice someone was at the wheel of the car whose hubcap he was trying to steal.

bottom one is the link called the Stella awards

Answer 3

I feel that if the court systems were not abused by such ridiculous law suits that maybe there would be quicker justice in a lot of the suits that really matter............$640,000 for coffee spilled.....whatever happened to not DRINKING AND DRIVING!!! LOL

Answer 4

This case of the coffee burn at McDonald's is often brought up as an example of a spurious lawsuit. Often an example of a customer who just should have known better that coffee is hot.

Well yes and of course that is only half the story. According to Wiki
"On February 27, 1992, Stella Liebeck, a 79-year-old woman from Albuquerque, New Mexico, ordered a 49¢ cup of coffee from the drive-thru of a local McDonald's restaurant. Liebeck was in the passenger's seat of her Ford Probe, and her grandson Chris parked the car so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. She placed the coffee cup between her knees and pulled the far side of the lid toward her to remove it. In the process, she spilled the entire cup of coffee on her lap.[7]

Liebeck was wearing cotton sweatpants; they absorbed the coffee and held it against her skin as she sat in the puddle of hot liquid for over 90 seconds, scalding her thighs, buttocks, and groin.[8] Liebeck was taken to the hospital, where it was determined that she had suffered third-degree burns on six percent of her skin and lesser burns over sixteen percent.[9] She remained in the hospital for eight days while she underwent skin grafting. Two years of treatment followed."

So this was not simply a hot liquid momentarily causing discomfort.

So how could hot coffee cause such damage? Wiki states...

During the case, Liebeck's attorneys discovered that McDonald's required franchises to serve coffee at 180–190 °F (82–88 °C). At that temperature, the coffee would cause a third-degree burn in two to seven seconds. Stella Liebeck's attorney argued that coffee should never be served hotter than 140 °F (60 °C), and that a number of other establishments served coffee at a substantially lower temperature than McDonald's.

Liebeck's lawyers presented the jury with evidence that 180 °F coffee like that McDonald’s served may produce third-degree burns (where skin grafting is necessary) in about 12 to 15 seconds (as a reference, the boiling point of water is 212 °F or 100 °C). Lowering the temperature to 160 °F (71 °C) would increase the time for the coffee to produce such a burn to 20 seconds. (A British court later rejected this argument as scientifically false.[10]) Liebeck's attorneys argued that these extra seconds could provide adequate time to remove the coffee from exposed skin, thereby preventing many burns. McDonald's reason for serving such hot coffee in its drive-through windows was that, because those who purchased the coffee typically wanted to drive a distance with the coffee, the high initial temperature would keep the coffee hot during the trip.[4]

Other documents obtained from McDonald's showed that from 1982 to 1992 the company had received more than 700 reports of people burnt by McDonald's coffee to varying degrees of severity, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000.[4]

McDonald's quality control manager, Christopher Appleton, testified that this number of injuries was insufficient to cause the company to evaluate its practices

This poor lady was not any more careless than most of us have been at times. I'm sure that most of us have spilled a coffee, tea or soft drink at a restaurant at one time. At the time you were cleaning up the spilled beverage did you ever think that it could result in an 8 day hospital stay?

Yes we all should be careful around anything that has the ability to cause physical damage and we do have a responsibility to protect ourselves.

But McDonalds was serving their coffee at an unsafe temperature.

Furthermore their coffee used to taste like crap.

My two cents.

Answer 5

It was the womens fault for not being careful. Everyone knows coffee is hot!

Answer 6

If the coffee is hotter than permitted, then it is mcdonalds fault. If the woman spilled it once it was in her posession, then it is her fault.

Answer 7

The woman is responsible for what she did to the cup. McDonald's didn't pour it on her. We are becoming a country of lawyers whose clients are trying to get money any way they can.

Answer 8

The dumbass woman should've known that coffee is always hot. Since she spilled it on herself, it's HER responsibility. Or should've been. That judge was a crackhead and McD's never should've had to pay that gold-digging fruit-loop a cent.

Answer 9

Since coffee is made hot, I think the women was at fault!

Answer 10

The woman! It's not anyones fault but i don't think it matters, it seems like a pure accident, that's kind of over the top unless you got harsh burns and needed treatment?